It’s been a while since I have blogged, largely to working on the house and a big painting project. I thought I’d just share a quick catch up with up on my league standing at the rugby outlanders club. I have had league 4 games and a Forfeit over the last month or so. I have used a similar list in all the games, tweaking it a tad. It has meet with varying degrees of success but on the whole it works well. Against marines however it’s brutal to the point of hate, so I am not that popular with some at the mo. I think my list has sparked one of the longest threads on our fb page in long while. The culprit of the hate? The tesseract ark!

My list (core)
My basic plan is fairly similar each game. A tight core of warriors, skimmers and destroyers, with wraith acting as lone attacker. My twin scythes, one of each pair up and rush ahead. The night scythe dumping 12 warriors and The Lord into the opponents battle lines. This plan works for me, but it’s not with out risks. The wraith tend to die and I need to plan better with these.

Game 1
This was a game against a dark eldar force with pesky eldar allies. Played against a brilliant player, norbert, it was a fast game, but he played it well. He controls his forces well. His planning was his usually great approach. He planed was support his regular troops with the allies including 3 walkers. For this game I left the ark at home using the canoptek spider and some scarab bases. Added to this was a big squad of deathmarks. This added up to around 250pts of my 1500pt force, around the same cost as the ark. The game was a fast pasted affair. My normal approach worked well, but the ageis line killed my doomscythe. The fast pace nature should have doomed my Necrons and in a longer game I’d have been dead and his farseer took a terrible toll on my warriors.

The end result was a win, but only on vp, the table was a lot closer. It was this near miss that made me think about using the ark in more games. The variety of the main weapon would have helped me a lot in his game. The senseless death of the canoptek elements of the force for very little led me to make a clear decision as to what I should drop.

Game 2
Against black Templars and my first game against a newer club member. He went for a troop heavy force and I choose to take the tesseract ark as the core of my force. the forgeworld heavy tank is a major threat to marine forces, but he was not aware of how much of a mess it will make of his plans.

He took a big block of troops and in the first couple of turns I broke the back of the force. The ark killed a large chunk of the force and the fliers took a good chunk too. The building death toil started the hate for the ark, but it was game 3 that built it to its current status.

The 4 turn tabling of the Templars was an easy win. The game was still fun. The solar flare setting on the singularity chamber (range 48″, S7, ap2, heavy 3) is a real marine killer. Again my fast paced approach to the game and the tight packing of the marines lead to the inevitable win.

Game 3
Vs space wolves. I thought I was royally screwed on this one. A 1500 pts drop pod army, hammering in to my close combat phobic necrons. I was doomed. While i had the first turn with nothing to shoot at, he got to fire first. The first shot of the game killed the normally impervious A-barge and I had the sinking feeling of a one sided massacre. Then the ark spoke. It kill 10 wolves and a drop pod in turn 2. The arrival of the fliers also killed a few more, including most of the wolf guard. His army looked beat up before the fight really started. Turns 3 and I lost the odd warrior. In return he lost the rest of his troops. He lost the last of his pod at start of turn 4 to the ark, leaving it with a kill total around a whooping 50% of this army falling to the power of captured star.

This lead to a lengthy debate on the club Facebook page the next day. The ark being the focus of the debate and to be fair it had killed around 1000pts in 2 games. In 1500 pt games that is a huge impact.

Game 4
Against tyranids. This game is alway hard for necrons and my opponent is a great player with the ‘nids. It was going to be interesting to see how the ark managed vs the hordes, but he choose a monstrous creature list and it turned into a doozy of a game. It was close in the end and the ark had a much smaller impact.

This game however saw the death of the ark for the first time since I started using it. The death however did take the carnfex that killed it. The explosion of the chamber causing the last wound in the hulking beast. The game was very cinematic like that and it was great game.

We thought it was a draw, but after checking game scoring, I had won by 1 point! It was very close and it was the death on his spore pod that cost him. (Worth 1 vp in purge the alien)

Parting shots

So what did these 4 games teach me?

1-I really hate the allies rules. I make all armies bland. “Got a racial weakness in force? Not a worry just borrow something to fix it rather than learn how work around it.” I did use allis last year, but I found that picking that only thing to fill a gap left me with out a complete knowledge of my force. I paid for that in last years final. I have not used any allies this year and I feel I know my necron a lot better as a result. (Ok, so I am grumpy about allies, but only because I am grumpy old git)

2-the ark is a fearsome bit if kit. The cost is high(250pts) and the risk is high (with the shields it’s av12 open topped) but it is a tough old sod until its shields fail. The solar flare setting, which has the same stats as the plasma executioner on the leman Russ tank, is a very effective way to kill space marines. Especially if they stand nice and close together. The wolves in particular made this mistake. They did not plan the ark and they failed to use the cover provided by their pods. They died where they deployed.

3-the use of forge world stuff is a lot of fun, but they do tend to lean towards the heavier end of the broken spectrum, use with caution to avoid alienation.

4-fear the new nid codex!they get a lot of stick a the mo, but good help us when they get aa and yet bigger beasts! The push for cheap troops will see more nids on the table each game! Nids vs necron is always going to be fun.

So how’s the league looking? Well, the view from top is always nice, but the competition is high this year and the 2 close calls make life difficult for me. I will be near the top at the end, but I am not confident yet of being in the final game in January, but if am, the ark won’t be far behind. (Insert evil laugh here)

I recently helped my local gaming club, the Rugby outlanders,to get a small grant from Rugby borough Council. The Grant was from the ‘play fund’ a pot of money to help promote play across the borough. Rather than just focus on sports the council has tried to get young people to join all sorts of clubs and groups. We obtained a small amount, around £500.00, but this is enough to really help our club.

Our plan is to get new player to try out wargamming and to improve the experience for club members. We currently have around 30 members with about 15 at most games night. We are building the club and the leadership team (known as the senators) are doing a great job of this. We run 2 leagues and a yearly painting competition. I have said this before, but I count my self lucky to be a member of this club. We a group of like minded people who all love our hobby. We don’t have any really power gamers, picky players or any really annoying fanboys. We play any game and system and anything is possible. I should say a huge thanks to Simon Trammer for his efforts to keep it all together. Every time he posts an update on the leagues standing he gets a barrage queries, comments and complaints, but he still carries on!

So, what’s the point of this blog?well on Saturday, 27th April we had a scenery painting day where we tried to paint up as much of the new scenery as possible. We had the following to sort out.

2 realm of battle,
A fortified manor
An imperial sector
4 gaming hills
3 woods
And a load of various bits from our local gw.

The plan was for club members to paint away and, through lots of local advertising, to get new members to join up. We also had loads of food available.

We had 6 people around all day and over the day we got a lot done. By the end of the day, most of it the assembly was completed, with the 2 big projects, the RoB boards done following a group effort. Painted up using the GW Scenery painting kits, and flocked over, we now have these great kits ready to go. The 4 hills were nearly completed as well, with only the flocking left.

It was a long day, but the club did well, sadly we only got a few new members, but they had a fun day and this was the start of the project. A few club members, me included did take some home work away to finish and I now have 3 citadel woods to paint!

I should say a big thanks to Simon for organising it and to Adam for putting up with me for the day on the RoB kits. Can’t wait to play him on them.

To cap this week off we also have a day trip planned to Warhammer world on the 6th may. Taking 2 cars full it should be a great day. I hope to get a game in with the Necrons, and as ever, you can expect a blog on this outing in due course.

On Thursday I am facing a tyranid force,1500 pts with Necron. its the first time I have fought the bugs for a loooooong time and its the first time with the necron. I really don’t know what to expect, so I need to rely on what I can control.

So I will dip into my favourite list and tweak it out for the ‘Nids. Here is my list for the game.

I have removed the scarabs and tweaked the C’tan. I then dropped a few warriors and 2 destroyers, This saved enough for a 10 man unit of deathmarks.

I love the deathmarks kit and nothing scares more than a big sniper unit. The hunters from hyperspace rule (HfH) is a nice one vs Nids. 1 enemy unit is nominated as the target, This marked squad is wounded on 2+ with any shots from a Deathmarks squad. This includes any characters that join them.

The poisoned hits will help me take down the big beasts and with destroyers, I should be able kill the big threats early one. The 3 twin linked tesla destructors will be used to maul the horde units. The C’tan will be used protect the gun line.

My worries?

I have 3 units that i know he used that I am worried about.

The flying hive tyrant- it’s flying slash Attack is nasty and I worry about my a-barge. My barge has a huge target on its back.
The doom of mala’tai- I have never fought this and I know he likes it.
Genestealers- Now this is a historic fear. My old ‘Nid opponent used lots of these and I lots so many games due to them. These will get just out of spite.

His weakness

He lacks any real anti aircraft defences while I have 2 flyers
I have a death ray (see previous blog)
He has little experience against the necrons, and has never met a C’tan

So that’s my plan and following previous games, I am confident. Adam is a good player and this will be good game. I am hoping to kill the big stuff first and dominate early one. I really don’t know how this will go. All I know is this will be a great game. Played at shadow games, Rugby, against a great opponent, we can be sure of a memorable game. As always I will try to tweet out in games reports and follow up with a post game debrief.

Ozrax

I am an old Warhammer 40,000 warhorse. I have been painting and gaming since 1989 and this blog is about my adventures with a Paint Brush. I love my hobby and am always Pro hobby. I am the Cheerleader for the Miniature Monday on Twitter.